To the editor:
There has been no shortage of complaints about the proposed changes on Iowa Highway 144 (First Avenue.)
Folks have been hollering and stomping their feet about the lights and lanes at the caboose since the very moment those changes were first made.
At this point in time, it doesn’t particularly matter what anyone thinks about the lights and the lanes around First and Willis. You can’t choose whether or not you want to obey those lights and turning lanes without making things riskier there than what you already think they are.
Until and unless things are changed back, don’t indulge in the Libertarian School of Traffic Control by making up your own rules as you go.
The reccomendations for the changes on First Avenue, past and present, were made by qualified experts. If you can show me your degree in civil engineering, city planning, traffic control or what have you, I might give your opinion on this issue a little more serious consideration.
Similarly, if you can show me your degree in the actuarial sciences or come up with up-to-date and accurate statistics that prove conclusively that three lanes are more dangerous than four, you might just have a better chance of convincing me the experts who are advocating three lanes are full of beans.
This is not to say that there will not be issues with three lanes. Probably so. Still, unless you’re genuinely qualified to make the case that four lanes are better than three, we have to go by what the experts say. You need to quantify your expertise in such matters or accept the changes being handed down.
Here’s something I’m certain no one wants to hear: First Avenue was neither designed nor paved with the intent of accomodating the amount of traffic on it now. The city was never planned with the idea that any more than one north-south corridor would ever be needed.
There is no way to widen First Avenue without wreaking havoc on all kinds of residentual and business property. There are no other through streets in town running north and south that can possibly be widened or improved without playing heck with several dozen neighborhoods.
No level of government is going to spend who knows how many millions of dollars to pave over farmland and encroach on high-end housing to build a bypass around the town. Barring divine intervention, none of that is going to happen.
Face it. We’re stuck with just First Avenue. It won’t really matter whether it has three or four lanes. It will never, ever be able to swiftly and safely accomodate the level of traffic it has now.
Also, we know full well the traffic is not bound to decrease on it either.
Accept it. Get over it.
There are really only three things you can do. Plan to take more time getting through town. Ease up on the gas, too. Last but not least, watch what the heck you’re doing no matter how many lanes there might be.
Nick L. Eakins
Perry
When Perry was founded in the late 1869 First St was a dirt road. Many years later it was paved. In the early 1960s, it was made into a paved four-lane road to the edge of town. The construction took property from the landowners to make a four-lane road to nowhere. When the road reaches the city limits, it became a two-lane road. Several accidents have occurred at the narrowing point. Changes need to be made on First Avenue. It is not safe now for many reasons: no sidewalk, poor street lighting, too high a speed limit and poor signage. The city of Perry can make a strong case for needed changes and improvements on First Avenue to the DOT. That is how the late Mayor George Soumas got the DOT to make 141 a four-lane road to Des Moines.
No, Nick, I will not get over it. Bravo, Chuck Schott and Vicki Klein, for your votes. I shake my head to those who voted the other way. I, as a tax payer, will gladly surrender tax money to improve First Avenue without it being held hostage by the DOT. First Avenue does not, I mean DOES NOT, need to be a three-lane street. The stupidity of it from Willis to Pattee is dumb enough. Now let’s create even more confusion, congestion and hostility down the entire highway? And for what? So we don’t have to pay for improvements? Another reason why we are laughed at and don’t think we aren’t. We have great things going on in this town. This moronic idea is NOT one of them. If our city people want to govern like it’s Des Moines, then please move to Des Moines!
There was nothing wrong with four lanes, and three doesn’t fix it! I’m tired of almost having head-on collisions with people who are headed south and get in the turning lane to go to Casey’s at Pattee when I need to turn left on Pattee. P.S. Nick doesn’t drive. Yes, his opinion matters, just not to me!